Pretty good weekend for Huntsman

CONCORD, N.H. — For a guy who’s been stuck at the bottom of the polls his whole campaign, Jon Huntsman had a pretty good weekend.

In back-to-back debates ahead of the first-primary, Huntsman mustered a stronger version of his statesman, above-the-partisan-fray approach than he’s been able to in past debates. He even landed several well-placed punches — particularly on Mitt Romney — along the way.

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Republican voters elsewhere haven’t been impressed. But Huntsman’s counting on a last-minute surge of Granite State maverick tendencies — combined with crossover support from Democrats and independents, who can vote in the primary — to give him the finish in the top three on Tuesday that he himself has said he’ll need to continue his campaign.

There are signs of some progress. Sunday’s Suffolk University daily tracking poll showed Huntsman as the only candidate with upward momentum. He moved into third place, behind Mitt Romney and Ron Paul and ahead of Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum.

It’s to those independent-minded, moderate New Hampshire voters that the newly spunkier Huntsman is making his pitch and never as memorably as in his first exchange of Sunday’s debate, when he came roaring in with a rebuttal of Romney’s attack on him for serving as ambassador to China in the Obama administration, laid out in Saturday night’s debate.

“I was criticized last night by Gov. Romney for putting my country first,” Huntsman said, looking straight into the camera. “And I just want to remind the people here in New Hampshire and throughout the United States that I think he criticized me, while he was out raising money, for serving my country in China.”

“Yes, [I was serving] under a Democrat. Like my two sons are doing in the United States Navy,” Huntsman said. “They’re not asking who, what political affiliation the president is. I want to be very clear with the people of New Hampshire and this country. I will always put my country first.”

Nor did Huntsman back down when Romney tried to respond.

“I think the decision to go and work for President Obama is one which you took. I don’t disrespect your decision to do that,” Romney replied. “I just think it’s most likely that the person who should represent our party running against President Obama is not someone who called him a remarkable leader and went to be his ambassador in China.”

Huntsman fired back at Romney, addressing debate moderator David Gregory.

“This nation is divided, David, because of attitudes like that,” he said.

He returned to that argument later in the debate, picking up the “trust gap” rhetoric he’s been using for months without much success gaining traction.

“When the American people look at the political process play out, they hear all the spinning and all the doctrinaire language. And they still walk away with the belief that they’re not being represented in Congress,” Huntsman said, advocating for congressional term limits for members and banning lobbying by former members. “We’ve got to start with the structural problems. There is no trust.”

Huntsman still had his off moments, struggling at points to connect with the Republican audiences, such as when he broke out in a string of Mandarin on Saturday night in an attempt to bat back an attack from Romney on his China policy.